A Better Man
by ChoCedric
Summary: Disregards HBP and DH. Prequel to A Father's Love. What made Severus Snape turn to Albus Dumbledore for redemption? What sent him over the edge and made him believe that being a Death Eater was wrong?


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

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A Better Man

By: ChoCedric

Severus Snape Apparated to Riddle Manor, fear rippling through his entire body. He had been a Death Eater for a little over six months now, and his purpose so far had been making potions for the Dark Lord. This was his specialty, but somehow, he didn't feel satisfied.

All through his life, Severus Snape had felt powerless. He felt this way at home, because his father was abusive to his mother. He was the child cowering in the corner, not knowing how to stop any of the transgressions from happening. He felt powerless at school, because it seemed like he could never stand up to bullies like James Potter and Sirius Black. Yes, he'd hexed them back, but he always felt like they'd had the upper hand. When Sirius had played the prank that almost got Snape killed by werewolf Remus, that was the final straw. He had always been into the Dark Arts; he thought they were fascinating. He started hanging around with a group of Slytherins who always whispered about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-named who gave people power beyond any other. It grabbed Snape's interest; he wanted to get revenge on Black and Potter for all they had done, and that pathetic Pettigrew who was always egging them on. He wanted to feel powerful, for once, to feel accepted, to feel like he belonged.

But as soon as he'd joined Voldemort, he had a niggling feeling that what he was doing was wrong. Voldemort talked about killing people; killing people who disagreed with him. Sure, Snape hated Potter and Black and had wished them dead countless times, but to kill someone for no reason at all niggled at his conscience. And then there was something his mother had said, something she had said before she died in pain one night. His father had beaten her to death in a drunken rage, and then turned his wand on himself back in Snape's seventh year. As his mother lay dying, she whispered,

"Sevvie, I'm so sorry about everything that's happened. But I want you to do something for me, my son. Promise me that you'll be a good man. Don't grow up to be like your father. I admit it, I was weak; I loved him too much to get out while I still could. But I want you to be loved, Sev. I want you to grow up and be happy, and become a good man."

Severus had sat by as she had breathed her last breath. After that, arrangements had been made for him to stay with the Malfoys until he got a house of his own. Lucius Malfoy was always talking about the Dark Lord, so Severus got sucked in even further. But his mother's last words always haunted him. Yes, he'd thought his mother was a weak, centimental fool for sticking by a man who obviously didn't love her, but somehow, her advice to him had always pulled something in him.

As he stood before the Dark Lord, the snakelike man looked especially happy about something tonight. Severus started to get nervous; was he going to be told to do something that niggling feeling in his conscience didn't agree with? If he was given this kind of order, what did he plan to do about it?

"Ah, my faiwhful Death Eaters," Voldemort said. "You are not all here. But never mind; I know where my other loyal servants are. They are preparing your toys for you to play with." He opened the door to his chambers and called, "Bring them in, my followers!"

Severus then saw Bellatrix Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Theodore Nott, Frederick Zabini, Walden Mcnair, and Ludovig Avery bring in six struggling women and children. Something in Severus's heart shattered at this sight. The children were only about five or six years old, and they were screaming and calling for their mothers and struggling against their captors.

"Ah," sneered Voldemort, looking at his servants. "Good, good. Now your task is simple, my remaining followers. Take the Muggle children, and take their mothers. Each one of you is to have one captive. Do what you want with them. Afterwards, I want you to kill them. Show them a good time, my loyal brethren."

"Noooo!" the children screamed, tears streaming down their faces. Bellatrix came to stand beside Severus, a little girl struggling in her grip. "Take her, Severus," she said in a cheerful voice. "Show her your skills. I am sure she will like them very much."

Severus felt bile rise in his throat. This was so wrong. This was not what he had signed up for. The idea of revenge against Black and Potter had been so sweet, but was it worth this? These were only children, children like he had been once, who'd had to watch the struggles between his parents, who'd been treated like a nobody. Was he supposed to do to this child what had been done to him? No, he'd never been abused as much as his mother, but when his father got into one of his drunk moods, you would never know what he could do. So Snape could say he had definitely experienced abuse before, in all different variations. Over the years, he'd learned to hide what went on at home and just not talk about it.

But Severus knew, if he was going to get through this, he couldn't look conspicuous in front of the Dark Lord. He could act like a Gryffindor now and refuse him, or he could act like a Slytherin and find another way to get out of this. So keeping his emotionless mask in place, he grabbed the child from Bella and walked, her struggling form in his grasp, to one of the bedrooms in the manor. His heart tore open as she tried to get away from him, screaming, "No, no! Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me!" mirroring the words of his own childhood.

When they got to one of the big bedrooms, Severus slammed the door and put a Silencing Charm on the room. It was true that the Dark Lord liked to hear his victims scream, but seemed to understand that some of his followers only liked to hear the victim in their own private space, to not let anyone else hear them. They liked to have complete power. So convincing himself that the Dark Lord would think he was one of these kinds of people, he put the charm on the room.

After this was done, he let the child go. She whimpered and tried to run away, but the door was locked with a Locking Charm. "I'm afraid I can't let you get away," said Snape in a controlled voice, trying to hide the fear he felt inside. "The Dark Lord will not allow that to happen."

"Why are you doing this to me?" the little girl sobbed. "Why are you going to hurt me?"

She sounded so innocent and so scared, and this caused the bitter man's heart to twinge again. "Listen," he said as gently as he could, "I'm not going to hurt you."

The girl looked confused for a minute. "Then why--then why did you grab me? What are you going to do to me?"

Severus didn't know what to say. With a sinking heart, he was coming to a terrible understanding of what he was going to have to do. It was the only way that would help them both out of this with the least pain possible. "Listen to me," he said. "I was only pretending to hurt you." How was he supposed to explain what he was doing to a five-year-old child?

"Pretending?" the little girl asked, still looking confused. "What do you mean?"

"You have to understand, once upon a time," said Snape, "I was a very bad man. I had a lot of people hurt me when I was a little boy, so I wanted to hurt them back. I thought if people could be bad to me, I could be bad to them. But I understand now that that's not the way life works."

"But I never did anything to you," she said, more tears coming down her face.

"I know you didn't, child," Snape said. "But the kinds of things people did to me, I thought I didn't deserve them. So I thought I would do things to other people who didn't deserve them as well. But I understand now that I was wrong. I was a very bad man once, but I don't want to be a bad man anymore."

"So why are you still with those bad men who want to hurt me?" asked the little girl, wide-eyed. "And what about my mummy, that bad man who took her is hurting her, isn't he?"

Severus felt awful, looking into this little girl's eyes. "No, she will be all right," he lied, knowing very well that the woman was probably being restrained by magic and raped right now, but he couldn't say that to a scared child.

"Are you sure?" the child asked. "That man was grabbing her!"

"Well, maybe he's a good man too," said Snape. "And the reason why I am still with the bad men is because if I pretend to be bad, the man in charge will think I hurt you. If I act like I'm good, then he'll hurt you himself. But I want to learn how to be a better man now."

"Oh," said the child in wonder. "It's like I saw on TV, those good men pretending to be bad. They're called spies, aren't they?"

An idea came to Severus, it toppled into his head; this child had just made him decide what he was going to do. He was going to go to Dumbledore, atone for his mistakes by asking to become a spy for him. He was going to seek redemption for this awful mistake he'd made, joining the Death Eaters. "Yes," he answered. "That's what they're called. The spies then tell the leader of the good people what the bad people are going to do, so the good people can try to stop it."

"So you're a spy?"

"Yes."

The girl and Severus sat there in silence for a while, and dread built in Severus's stomach. In order to pull this off, he knew what he had to do. There was only one way. If he brought her back unharmed, she'd be dealt with by Voldemort himself, and be given the worst torture and death imaginable. Then he'd be killed as well, and he wouldn't be able to save any lives from this evil in the future. Stay in control, Snape, he commanded himself. You can't lose control. You have to do what you have to do. Act like a Slytherin.

"So magic exists, after all?" the little girl asked. "And what's your name?"

"Yes, magic exists," Snape answered. "And my name is Mr. Snape. What's yours?"

"Lily," the little girl answered.

Snape immediately thought of Lily Evans, the only girl who'd ever shown him kindness at Hogwarts, and what had he done? Lashed out at her and called her a filthy little mudblood in front of practically the whole school. But he hadn't known any other way to react to kindness; it was totally foreign to him. But afterwards, he'd felt so guilty. He didn't know how to apologize to people; if he did, he'd have said sorry to her a thousand times. His heart jolted at the look in this five-year-old Lily's eyes; she was looking at him with that beautiful, wide-eyed innocence that Lily Evans looked at magical things. Magic was so wondrous to people who had never known it before, and it made Severus's heart break to see that innocence and hope in her eyes.

"Will I see my mummy again, Mr. Snape?" Lily asked.

"Yes, you will, Lily," Severus assured her. Heart pounding heavily, and his throat going dry, he continued, "I can do a spell that will let you see her again."

He knew that the child's mother was probably dead by now, and of course, he had no idea whether there was life after death. But he had to give her some kind of reassurance, some kind of comfort in this terrible situation.

"Can you do it?" she asked, the hope and pleading in her eyes making his heart break even more. "I want to see her again. I want to be away from all these bad men."

Severus took a deep breath, his hands shaky. "Yes, I can do it, child," he said softly. This is the only way, he kept reminding himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Snape," Lily said, that look still in her eyes. "I'm glad you're going to be a better man now. Thank you for not hurting me."

"You're welcome," Snape whispered. "Now, for this spell to work, you need to close your eyes, and I will say some magic words. After that, you'll be back with your mother again."

"Okay," Lily said, closing her eyes. She had a smile on her face.

Snape had had no idea what this was like, to be loved unconditionally by someone. He'd never truly had his mother's love, and never had his father's. He picked up his wand from the bed in the room, knowing he had to be strong. He knew the child would be safe from the Dark Lord this way. He filled his mind with thoughts of all the innocent people he could save by going to Dumbledore and asking him for help. He didn't expect to get very far; he thought Dumbledore would call the Aurors and send him to Azkaban, which was what he knew he deserved anyway. But he knew that Dumbledore was a centimental old man who gave second chances to his holy Gryffindors. Would he possibly do that with a Slytherin? Don't think about that now, he told himself. Think about the task at hand. The girl will be safe from the Dark Lord, she might even see her mother again. Sending up a prayer to the heavens that Merlin would forgive him for what he was about to do, he pointed his wand and whispered, "Avada Kedavra."

His heart tore in two as he watched the green light speed towards Lily and hit her. She fell to the ground, and he knew she was gone. He'd done what he had to do, but he didn't feel any better for it. Not being able to handle it anymore, he felt tears sting his eyes and let them fall, crying for the little girl who would never know a proper life, all because of this evil. But at least she hadn't suffered; Voldemort would have done a lot worse. But this didn't make Severus feel any better.

Wiping his tears away, he cast some spells on her body to make it look like he'd done a number on her before he killed her. His expressionless mask back on his face, he walked out of the room and back into Voldemort's chambers.

"Ah, very good, Severus," the Dark Lord purred.

"Had a good night, Severus?" Lucius Malfoy asked, licking his lips. "I did."

"Yes, Lucius," answered Snape, feeling more bile rise into his throat. They were obscene, the whole lot of them.

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur. He was congratulated on a job well done again, and he saw all the other dead bodies of the children and women the Death Eaters had brought in. Then, he was dismissed by a very happy and jubilant Dark Lord.

He arrived on Hogwarts grounds, and as soon as he did, he vomited in the bushes. Pale and shaking, he walked through the corridors up to Dumbledore's office.

So that's how Severus Snape's story of spying began. As we all know, Dumbledore accepted him, and he began his dangerous work. He remained loyal to Dumbledore to the very end. He saved many lives, and like he'd told sweet, innocent little Lily, he became a better man.

Finis


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